Sandy college student manages painting crews for summer work

By Garth Guibord

The Sandy Post, Mar 31, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Garth Guibord / Sandy Post

AJ Schnell (center) canvasses a neighborhood in Sandy with his marketing team, Traven Lutz, right, and Dalton Bixby, to try and drum up business for Schnell’s summer painting business.

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Summer for a college student includes a little rest and relaxation after a long year of studying, and also the dreaded summer job. But for Sandy’s AJ Schnell, a freshman at Oregon State University, that job will be managing his own business.

Schnell will serve as a branch manager for College Works Painting, a program that hires college students to run independent operations that paint houses. He discovered the program when the company gave a presentation at his school, and as a construction engineering management major, he saw it as a good opportunity.

“It’s kind of like the exact same thing, but a smaller scale, which is one of the reasons I was interested in doing it,” said Schnell, who hopes to manage entire projects.

Schnell spent his spring break training in management and “paint tech” in preparation for the summer, when he will manage two two-man painting crews. He’s also hit the streets of Sandy, talking to homeowners, posting fliers and trying to book future jobs.

“There’s a lot of experience I can get in management that I wouldn’t be able to get in the classroom,” Schnell said.

As the manager, Schnell will also get to do the hiring (and firing) of the painters. One option is to hire his friends, who would be trained.

But as a budding businessman, Schnell is leaning toward finding more experienced workers who may have been impacted by the country’s financial troubles.

Schnell already has a sales pitch or two down pat, including the offer of free estimates and that “people’s homes are their No. 1 assets and you want to put money back into that right now.”

His experience will likely be anything but the typical summer job.

“I’m my own boss now, so I get to learn about running a business at a young age,” Schnell said. “I’m pretty excited.”

For more information, call 503-314-9432 or e-mail Aschnell58@collegeworks.com.